


spider ; 1971 - 2003

by transzoemurphy



Category: Monk (TV)
Genre: (thats stabbing. hello fellow ao3tagoftheday fans), Abusive Parents, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Backstory, Character Study, Consensual Underage Sex, Drug Use, Fights, Hate Crime, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I am so tired, Implied/Referenced Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Murder, Poverty, S3e1, Smoking, Stabbing, The Author Regrets Everything, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Living Conditions, Violence, by that i mean he murders someone and then has sex with his bf, homophobic violence, i guess, idk how fighting works + it shows, non consensual knifeplay, physical fight, punch a nazi day is every day!, race-based violence, referenced rape/non-con, theres a lot of violence here boys, tw for the F slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:31:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18408827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transzoemurphy/pseuds/transzoemurphy
Summary: this is about Spider from the episode “Monk Goes To Jail” because i saw him and i was like “Excuse Me,, i need Backstory” y’all’re welcome.





	spider ; 1971 - 2003

**Author's Note:**

> for some warnings pls read the tags !!! 
> 
> for those of u who don't remember the episode, Monk goes undercover as Ben Lincoln in prison to solve a case and is roomed with Spider, who is one of the most violent prisoners. At the end of the episode he and Monk are pretty good friends & spider saves him from three nazis who are trying to kill him

 

**(3 july 1971)**

Spider got his nickname when he was seven years old and climbed on top of the roof to escape his father, who was on a drunken rage and screaming at one of his brothers while his mom shot up some heroin in the corner of the living room.

It was funny to call it a _living_ room, he thought, when everyone in it was slowly dying.

He only had one friend, a boy named James who lived next door. James was fully deaf in one ear and fully blind in one eye, but he was the most perceptive person Spider knew.

He lived in the apartment building next to Spider's, and one floor above, so when Spider climbed up out the window and onto the roof of the building, he'd been at eye level with James, who was sitting on his mattress next to the window and reading a book.

Spider felt around for something small and landed on a small pebble, which he threw at James' window.

Luckily, both James' hearing ear and seeing eye faced the window, so he turned, looked up, and his jaw dropped.

James shoved the window open. "What are you, dude, a spider?"

Spider just shrugged.

"Okay, Spider." James clenched his teeth and looked at the five feet of space between their apartment buildings. "Listen, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but I have this long curtain rod. If I toss it to you, will you catch it?"

"Yeah," Spider said. "'Course."

 

**(17 may 1974)**

Spider had somewhere between seven and eleven siblings. Franklin, Theodore, Alexander, Amelia, Rosa, and Charles lived with him. His brother Kenneth, who was nineteen, lived a block down the street. His father had around four other kids with around four other women, although he wasn't allowed to see them and therefore didn't know how many more there were.

Theodore and Franklin were sixteen, twins, and both went out to clubs to get money. Despite being only ten, Spider had a good idea of how they were getting the money, and he was pretty sure it had something to do with that one girl who'd babysat him and locked him in the bathroom and said she'd show him, but he didn't really remember what happened next. But his brothers always came back from the club drunk or high and with bruises on their necks, and Spider knew not to ask.

Amelia was seven and Rosa was five. Charles, at thirteen, took care of them, along with the rest of the family. He had a job at the nearest McDonalds. He was the one who always cleaned and cooked while Theo and Frank were out earning money.

His father was an alcoholic and his mother had been abusing heroin for longer than he'd been alive. If provoked in any way, his father would start screaming and throwing things, and his mother would take another shot or a drag from her cigarette. Overall, it wasn't the greatest environment.

The only person Spider knew who was poorer than he was James. James was his best friend in the world. He shared a one-room apartment with his mom and dad and his older brother Jason, who was twelve and making preparations for his bar mitzvah, despite living in poverty.

James' apartment was dirty and had a rat infestation. The glass in one of the two windows was broken, and there was a hole in the wall covered by duct tape, and more often than not James had hunger for dinner. Instead of beds, they had two twin mattresses, propped against opposite sides of the room, around the kitchenette. They also had a couch, which Spider sometimes slept on if he came over, although usually he shared the mattress with James.

"Spider?" James asked one night, as the wind blew through the crack in the window and fluttered against the towel which doubled as a curtain. "Remember Lily?"

"The weird babysitter?"

"Yeah. Did she do anything, like... You know what I mean."

Spider thought for a moment. "I really don't know what you mean."

"Like... did she, y'know." James' hands flailed around a bit. "Like, touch you, at all?"

"I don't remember." He didn't remember anything after he heard the door lock.

"She did to me," James mumbled. His voice was small. "She put her mouth... yeah. You know what I mean."

"That's fucked up," said Spider.

James nodded. "Yeah. I don't even know why she did it. I just know I was scared. I was really scared. She said we were gonna play a game."

"She said she'd show me how my brothers got their money." His voice was nearly inaudible, but he could hear the echoes of the confession in the room.

Silently, James reached over and took his hand. "I'm sorry."

 

**(2 june 1977)**

Spider was arrested in 7th grade for his first crime.

He tried to explain to the officer why he'd felt the need to pound a seventeen year old girl's face into the ground. He'd broken her nose and kept punching until two police officers managed to pry him off and slap handcuffs on him.

"Listen, that's the girl—"

"Excuse me, are you going to cooperate or not?"

The rest of the interrogation went along these lines. Spider was put in a juvenile detention centre ("kiddie jail," as he came to call it) for a week, and the second he was released, James bolted down the street to him.

"Dude, the fuck did you do?"

"I beat Lily and broke her nose."

"She deserved it, then."

"I tried telling them that! They wouldn't listen!"

"I'm sorry," James said. He dug through his pockets, handing Spider a cigarette and a lighter. "Do you want one?"

"Yeah," he said numbly. "What can it hurt?"

They had their first kiss four hours later behind a froyo place just two blocks away from their apartments.

 

**(27 august 1981)**

Spider had killed his father and he wasn't sorry.

His death was ruled acute alcohol poisoning. Spider had added quite a bit of some cleaning agent he'd found under the sink and poured it into his cup, and then he'd gone out to see James, as one does when they've just set up a murder.

At seventeen years old, Spider wasn't ready for a long stay at the local jail.

But this? _This_ he was ready for.

James had him against the wall in his apartment, shoving off Spider's jean jacket and then his own hoodie before returning to leaving light kisses on his neck and deeper ones on his chest, ones that were sure to leave marks.

"You're okay?" James asked, a hand flat on Spider's chest, the other tangled in his long brown hair.

"I'm great," Spider said. "I'm great."

James nodded. "Tell me what you want, Spider."

It was James' own way of asking for consent while still keeping up his _I'm-better-than-you_ façade, which Spider didn't immediately realise, but the second he did, he melted.

"Handjob?"

"What do you say, baby?"

"Handjob, please?"

"Good boy," James said. He fought with the button on Spider's jeans for a second before managing to pull them down enough to begin jacking him off.

Spider's moans got whinier and louder, and the second he was close to climaxing James stopped.

"James," Spider said, looking up at him. "Why'd you stop?"

"What do you say? What's my baby boy say when he wants to cum?"

"Please," Spider whispered, and James let him, his hand stroking him to guide him through his orgasm.

"Fuck, J, I love you," Spider whispered, and then he froze, because this was the first time he'd said that. _What if he'd fucked up?_

"I love you too," James whispered, pressing his forehead to Spider's. "So much."

 

**(24 january 1983)**

Spider killed four people on the same day that he watched his boyfriend die right before his eyes, the same day he'd planned to fucking propose. He knew they wouldn't be legally married, but for God's sake, he was going to spend his life with this boy.

One of the four men jumped out at them from behind the shadows, snapping out a "faggots" and punching James into the wall.

"Fuck you," Spider said, but he wasn't prepared for the fist that collided almost instantly with his jaw.

The other two came out of nowhere and before Spider could process any of it and began punching at James and Spider.

Spider fought back with everything in him, throwing himself at the attackers with a heart-wrenching cry.

Blood was dripping down his face and into his eyes but through one he caught a glimpse of a swastika tattoo on one of their necks.

He instantly punched as hard as he could and smirked at the following wheeze before trying to knee his other three opponents in the crotch.

James was curled in a ball, protecting himself as two of the men kicked at him and shouted antisemitic slurs, and Spider was trying to get them to back away when he heard the sickening sound of bone breaking and he _knew_ what had happened.

He let out a guttural scream and grabbed the knife one man had been holding and stabbed the first one in the neck, immediately yanking the blade out roughly and stabbing swastika tattoo guy twice, and the other two in the chest, before literally kicking them aside and kneeling in front of James.

James, whose skull was cracked, whose skull Spider could see, James, his first friend, first kiss, first love, first _everything_.

"James. James, please. Can you hear me? James, please, please if you can hear me, please..."

Spider rested two fingers against James' neck and when a minute passed without a single heartbeat he screamed and grabbed the knife again, stabbing all four of the attackers until they didn't appear human, until his clothes and face were covered in blood, until he finally felt calm enough to walk to the payphone on the other side of the parking garage.

"Hello, 911? My friend and I were just attacked by four men. I’m the last one alive. I killed them.”

 

**(3 july 2003)**

Spider kind of wished he'd gotten the chance to murder the three Nazis who had attacked Ben Lincoln, but he'd killed five people in his lifetime. He didn't need to add to that.

"You stood up for me," Ben said, almost in awe.

"Mhm."

"Why?"

Spider shrugged. "I don't hate you, but I hate Nazis."

Ben blinked at him for a second. "I would like to hear whatever story you're thinking of."

Spider sighed and pulled his hair back. "I loved someone once. Someone whose life was taken by a group of Nazis, who I killed. Someone who meant a lot to me. Like that girl you have on your wall waiting for you."

Ben nodded slowly. “Someone you were _in love_ with?”

Spider took a breath. “Yes.”

“What was her name, if you don't mind me asking?"

He took a breath. He could lie, like he'd been doing for his whole life, or he could start again, start anew with a new track record of being the most honest man on this Earth.

" _His_ name was James."

**Author's Note:**

> i pounded this out in an hour and a half instead of sleeping,.,.,., rip hyperfixation be like that. also highkey someone help Spider.,., thats my Boy and he needs a good life PLEASE.,.,also im ashamed of this but also idk .,im kinda proud of the end ???????? a little bit., uhhh if you like musicals u should follow my tumblr @trans-zoe-murphy UwU


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